I like history and it seems our relations with China resemble our relations with Japan in the 1930s. There is even a book out called The Coming War With China. Is it in our future?

In Christ, Nathan Paujo

-- Anonymous, April 29, 2001

Answers

First, let me clearly and unquestionably state that I am against war, and am prayerful that it can be avoided for my children's lifetime.

Regrettably, war is often the culmination of so many things, including the redistirbution of wealth and influence. It is the continuation of the ancient battle in the heavenlies, played out in our tangible realm. It is the ongoing rejection of its opposite - God's love.

Modern war involving the US is driven more by "national interests" than by ideals. We fought the Revolutionary War to declare independence from imperial hegemony, and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. We fought WW II ostensibly in response to the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and to resist fascism on the European continent. Skirmishes since then have been for various reasons.

If our relationship with China cannot stay within normal diplomatic channels, it is conceivable that some sort of limited war could be engaged. It would be a strange sort of battle, though. They do not have the naval power to project their massive ground forces into our theater. We do not have the ground power to fight any sort of sustained incursion into theirs. If a battle is to take shape, it may be over the middle ground - Taiwan.

I don't believe we will see a nuclear war because of how the Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) Doctrine that we engaged in while staring down the Soviet Union has affected our strategic thinking. For one, our land-based strategic ICBMs are much smaller in count than they were during the last half of the 20th century (at our peak we had 1054 acknowledged missiles pointing toward the Soviet Union, many of them with Multiple Reentry Vehicles - multiple warheads). Secondly, today's nukes are so much more effective in accuracy, yield, and devastation than the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombs that no one wants to see their actual engagement, porbably on either side. Finally, our remaining two triad arms -Trident submarines that are still extremely stealthy, and B-52/B-1/B-2 based warheads, are still potent enough to discourage a large-scale threat against us.

Our dealings with China are hampered by a very disparate set of views. China is among the oldest civilizations on the planet, and has been very resourceful in the past. Through empires its peoples have survived, revolted, changed, and survived again. Such robustness almost smirks at a young cub like the US. Conversely, our absolute reliance on a government of the poeple, by the poeple, for the people suggests that no long-range tyranny will emerge here. This is something hard for China to grasp - if the American president is so strong, why doesn't he simply make XYZ happen?

We may see deteriorating relationship, we may see proxy skirmish, we may even see shifting economy and some economic downturn if there is a spontaneous rejection of Chinese goods, but I doubt that either country wants to go directly to war with the other.

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2001